Kirti Mutatkar and Lynne Yadlin discuss TJ Klune's "Somewhere Beyond the Sea," the sequel to "The House in the Cerulean Sea." The Story: Arthur Parnassus, a phoenix and former orphan, runs an island orphanage for magical youth who are marginalized by society. Despite government pressure to control these children, Arthur creates a safe haven where they can be themselves. Key Themes: Acceptance - Society demands conformity with "See something, say something" messaging, but the book celebrates being different Unconditional Love - Arthur and Linus parent by allowing children to be exactly who they are Community Hope - The nearby town transforms from hostile to protective, literally standing between the children and government officials Representation - Diverse relationships and identities are centered throughout KBC Book Radar: Brain Fizz Factor: 4/5 - Simple prose with weighty themes Bookshelf Worthy: 4/5 - A keeper that resonates across ages A hopeful, humorous fantasy that reminds us communities can unite, love can triumph, and everyone deserves to belong exactly as they are. Credits: Host and Creator: Kirti Mutatkar Guest: Lynne Yadlin Show Editor: Aniket Mutatkar Logo & Design: Smitha Rau
In this Season 2 episode, Kirti Mutatkar sits down with Lynne Yadlin to discuss TJ Klune's "Somewhere Beyond the Sea," the sequel to "The House in the Cerulean Sea."
The Story: Arthur Parnassus runs an orphanage on Marsyas Island for magical youth—children with special abilities marginalized by society. Arthur, himself a phoenix and former abused orphan, creates a safe haven where these children can be themselves, despite pressure from the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (DICOMY) to control and isolate them.
Key Themes:
Acceptance and Difference - The book tackles society's treatment of those who are different, with "See something, say something" messaging everywhere. The magical youth—including Chauncey (a green being with tentacles), a garden gnome, and a Sprite—are expected to conform rather than celebrated for who they are.
Unconditional Love - Arthur and his partner Linus parent with two key principles: allowing children to be exactly who they are and loving them unconditionally. Unlike traditional parenting that molds children toward societal expectations, Arthur encourages authenticity.
Community and Hope - The most powerful moment comes when the nearby town, initially hostile, eventually sides with the magical youth against government officials. This community solidarity offers profound hope about human goodness and collective resistance.
Representation - TJ Klune intentionally includes diverse relationships—gay couples, mixed-culture families, different identities. As a queer author who felt the absence of representation growing up, he deliberately created a world where everyone belongs.
KBC Book Radar Ratings:
Why Read This: Beyond creative fantasy and humor, the book offers refreshment for the soul. It provides hope that communities can unite, love can triumph, and we can create spaces where everyone belongs exactly as they are.
Credits:
Host and Creator: Kirti Mutatkar
Guest: Lynne Yadlin
Show Editor: Aniket Mutatkar
Logo & Design: Smitha Rau
Lynne Yadlin & Kirti Mutatkar discuss "Somewhere Beyond the Sea" by TJ Klune
Kirti Mutatkar: I am super excited. This is season 2 of my KBC, Kirti's Book Club. We recently had a book club discussion, and as I was listening to the conversation, 1 of my friends who had recommended the book was talking about why she thought about this book, and I thought of inviting her on my podcast. So I am super excited to have Lynn Yadlin as my guest on the podcast today. Welcome to KBC, Lynn.
Lynne: Thank you so much for having me, Kirti.
Kirti Mutatkar: So I didn't give away the name of the book. I said "a book" and I got excited. This was what, last week we met on this book? The conversation was awesome. You always pick really good books. So what was the book you picked and why?
Lynne: Okay, so this book is called "Somewhere Beyond the Sea." It's actually the sequel to another book that came out a few years ago called "The House in the Cerulean Sea." The characters are the same. This book picks up those characters a few years after Cerulean Sea ends. Part of the reason that I picked it is that I loved Cerulean Sea so much, and I wanted to see what was happening to these characters after the end of the first book.
The premise of both of the books is that there is an island, Marsyas Island, where there's a house. They call it an orphanage, but it's basically a home for orphaned magical youth. These are children who have some kind of magical ability. In the first book, Arthur, who runs this orphanage, is an orphan himself and was treated very, very badly as a child. He decides to build this place and create a life for these magical youth that is just better than the life he grew up with.
The problem is that there is a government agency called the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, abbreviated as DICOMY, which supposedly has the best interests of these young people in mind. But really doesn't. It really is looking to just isolate them, to shut them off from society and to minimize them as much as possible.
The first book talks about the establishment of this house, and we get to know the characters. The second book is a continuation. I don't want to spoil the first book for you, but I think there's no way of talking about the second without spoiling the first book a little bit. So if you haven't read "The House in the Cerulean Sea," you might want to stop the podcast now, go read it, and then come back for this 1.
The auditor in the first book that is sent to review this orphanage is a man named Linus, and he is very, very serious about his work. He lives in a gray world and winds up coming to the island and being gradually, little by little, absolutely entranced by these children that he meets, by the island, by the beauty of this house in the cerulean sea, and by Arthur himself. That's where the first book ends.
This book picks up pretty much where that 1 left off, except that it begins with a hearing where Arthur is brought in front of the Department of Magical Youth and basically needs to give testimony as to why he should be able to run this orphanage, to take care of these very vulnerable, very dangerous magical youth. The story continues from there.
Kirti Mutatkar: When I read the first book, I think this wasn't your book. It was 1 of our other book club readers who suggested that book, but you had already read it before.
Lynne: I think I recommended it to them.
Kirti Mutatkar: I read it and the author is extremely creative in how he creates these characters and what he does. But what fascinated me was these youth—they're different people. And how the society treats them because they don't look or sound or act like them. How we as human beings try to control people and bring them to what we think is the norm. We expect everybody else to be that norm. And anybody else who doesn't follow or look like us—okay, you're the outcast and we need to control you. That whole concept fascinated me in the first 1 and even the second 1.
Lynne: Yeah, I agree completely. Posters are put up all over. This book takes place in an unknown country. We don't know where. I thought it was Britain, but there's no indication that it is. There's really no indication where it takes place. But posters are all over: "See something, say something." So if you see somebody different, if you see somebody behaving differently, acting differently, thinking differently, say something, because we want us all to be the same.
These creatures are so creative. You've got this 1 named Chauncey that we don't even know what he is, but he's green and he has tentacles and numerous arms. There's a garden gnome and a Sprite, and all these fun, creative characters. The Department of Magical Youth wants them just to fit in and be like everybody else. But Arthur wants to let them be who they are. Arthur, in fact, is also a magical creature. He's a phoenix, so that's cool. But yeah, I think the message behind the book for me was 1 of the reasons that it meant so much to me.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah. We all can be beautiful, we all can be funny, we can be ourselves and still be part of the society, right? And especially with a lot of things that are going on in the world today, it hits home. It hits home as you read this. We do it over and over again in different forms. I know these are considered monsters or look drastically different, but there's a point to that. That really resonated with me.
The other part—and I think I mentioned this during the book club—was the way Arthur is parenting. Because even as parents, we kind of have an idea of what success means, what our kids need to do, and we try to mold them the way we want them to succeed in this world. And he just wants them to be—if you want to be a monster, be a monster. He teaches them in very different ways. That was so fascinating for me.
Lynne: I think the most wonderful thing about Arthur and Linus both as they parent these children is 2 things. 1, allowing them to be exactly who they are. Just be who you are. But the second is: we love you exactly the way you are. We love each other. They are so supportive of each other—kids to each other, Arthur and Linus to the kids.
In this book, they bring on a new kid who's a different kind of monster, and they just embrace and absorb him into their community so flawlessly. It's this unconditional love that somebody who, as a child, received absolutely none of—I mean, he was just abused as a child—and here he finds a way to treat each of these children with unconditional love, but complete acceptance of their diversity and their unique talents and their unique gifts. He cultivates relationships between them. There are some really special relationships that crop up among the kids. That was 1 of the things that I loved so much—watching as the book developed, these special little relationships between some of the characters developed.
Maybe the third thing was watching these characters who really were children in the first book mature. They become a little older. 1 of them, when he's frightened, he turns into a tiny dog. That doesn't happen to him in the second book. He takes on this leadership role that is just magnificent. He kind of takes on—not in a bossy way at all—leadership by example and tries to convince Arthur and Linus: you can trust us. We're growing. We know each other. We care for each other. Trust us and let us support you. Don't take it all on yourself. And I love that.
Kirti Mutatkar: Right. I like that part too where Arthur is thinking, "I'm the caretaker of these kids," and he is under a lot of stress because he's managing that. The kids are extremely smart, very creative, and how they support him. But I also like the sense of humor. It was such a funny book. Some parts you just laugh out loud. Even the Yeti, who's 1 of the monsters, he puts on a play or something—
Lynne: A 1-woman show.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah, it's so funny. It's like a lot of relating to the themes that we talked about, what's happening today. And even the end, I really enjoyed because it gives you a feeling of hope. I think there was a feeling of hope in this book that I really enjoyed too.
Lynne: Exactly. I think that's 1 of the things—some of the people in our book club didn't like this book quite as much as the first, because they thought all the characters were introduced in the first book and this 1 we knew them, and they maybe didn't love the storyline quite as much. But for me—is it okay to reveal what happened towards the end?
There's another person sent from DICOMY who is not going to be as easily swayed as Linus was, and she just gives them the hardest time. She has no empathy whatsoever. Finally, they basically force her to leave.
Kind of as an aside, the town that is close to Marsyas, when we first meet that town in the first book, they are very anti-magical youth. There are "See something, say something" posters up all over the place. But gradually they get to know the kids. 1 of the things that Linus initiates when he comes to the island is he convinces Arthur to let the kids go over into the town and get to know people, let people get to know them. Yes, maybe we're monsters, but we're not monsters. We are good monsters. We are nice monsters, we're nice people. And gradually, little by little, the town comes around.
So at the climax at the end of the second book, when the black limos from the government come—it's a black and white portrayal of bad and good, and there's not much room for gray area in this book, and I will say that—but when they come, the entire town unites against them and basically puts their bodies in between the people from the island, Arthur and his family, Arthur and Linus and their family, and these government officials.
The government officials wind up leaving. They say they'll be back, but the triumph is just so heartening because it reminds me of these communities that I'm seeing around—without getting too much into the political realm—but communities that are protecting immigrants with their bodies and with their work and putting themselves on the line to protect some of these people from random raids. It gives me hope when I read this. In a work of fiction clearly, but it just did good for my soul to see something like that actually having a positive effect. And the ending even after that, without giving it away, was just so beautiful.
Kirti Mutatkar: You're reminding us also about the common people and your neighbors and your friends and your communities and the villages and the towns that you live in. They don't always side with what the political belief is or what the government says—"these people are different, treat them a certain way." They believe in the inner human, the goodness of a human being. They see that humanness in these characters and side with it. That was a little emotional, right? I mean, we are human beings. We are all different colors and shapes and sizes and different cultures, but at the end of the day, we are the same human beings, right? That felt really nice.
1 of the other things that was really important, I think, about both of these books—and the author TJ Klune talks about this in the afterward, and I've heard him in various interviews and social media—he said, and this is something that's more and more true, especially now when queer people, trans people, people that are different are being so marginalized and just brutally treated and canceled in a lot of ways. What was really, really important for him was the idea of representation. He wanted people that are different—there are gay couples, there are mixed culture couples, everyone is different and everyone is represented. I love that. And I just feel like that was so important for him to do because I think he's queer and he felt so little representation when he was reading, when he was a kid, that this is important.
Kirti Mutatkar: Right. He gets a lot of criticism, as I was looking at his reviews, because some people said it's the same thing, a repeat of last time. And he talks about 1 of the persons being an antichrist. But I think by that he's actually trying to get us to think in a different way. He's been given the name of Antichrist because that's what the society thinks he is. In the book, Arthur asks him, "Do you think of yourself as that? Don't just believe what others are saying." Because even the kid starts calling himself Antichrist, and it's just a name that society's given him.
So when I was looking at the reviews, even the reviews, I felt like, did you get that? Did you—the author was doing it intentionally. He's showing that we all believe the names that society gives us, but those are not really who we are. That was interesting how even the reviews had things against him, and I'm like, huh, maybe you didn't get the gist of what the book is all about.
Lynne: Yeah, I think so. And the thing that strikes me is that I like to believe all of us are made in the image of the divine, whatever you call that divine. And I think when we receive wounds as children, it's so hard to overcome them and have the best parts of ourselves come out. So rather than looking at somebody as bad or son of the Devil or Lucifer or the Antichrist, whatever you want to call him, let's make sure that person is loved as a child. And then maybe that person, whoever he or she is, has the potential to be a loving person as they grow up. That was another really important aspect.
Kirti Mutatkar: That's true. Don't label them and make them to be who the society thinks they should be. At least give them the chance of seeing what that is. That's so true.
So Lynn, when you look at this book, we do ratings in book club and the same thing we do on KBC. I have 2 ratings. 1 is the Fizz Factor. The lowest is like a flat soda—if you read a book and it doesn't really have any fizz factor. And a 4 is like your high where you start reading and things start connecting and you're like, "Oh yeah, I really relate to this." Where does that land for you on the scale of 1 to 4?
Lynne: 4 is the highest?
Kirti Mutatkar: 4 is the highest, yeah.
Lynne: I think it's a 4. I just found myself engaged from page 1 to the last page. I found myself engaged, laughing, emotional. It's not a super sophisticated, deeply written book, but if you look, there are some really important and somewhat weighty ideas talked about in a simple way.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah, I do agree with that part because some people say that it is exactly a copy of the first 1, just slightly different. Maybe it's too simplistic, maybe there are no twists and turns. But the simplicity, the simple way in which he related some of the important topics—actually that was appealing to me. Because people complicate languages or people complicate things, but he's very creative. Even the way he names the kids or the interactions between, like you said, Sal and somebody else, or between Arthur and—the things that they say to each other. If you read, actually there's a deeper meaning. He does that very, very well in a very simple way.
Lynne: I agree.
Kirti Mutatkar: The other rating that I have is on Bookshelf Worthy. 1 being you read it, you're done with it, you donate it and it's gone. The highest, 4 or 5 would be that you keep it on your shelf. And the highest, you've given it to people as a gift or it's with you all the time. Where does that lie?
Lynne: It's a book that I want on my shelf. I want to keep it. I don't know that I necessarily feel the need to read it again unless I wind up talking to somebody about it again. But I've already read it twice because when it first came out and reread it before the book club because I forget so quickly. So who knows, maybe I do want to read it again. But I want it on my shelf. I want to be able to give it to people because I think it's meaningful and I think it has very strong influences and makes very solid points.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yep. It's thoughtful. I think the first time when I read the first book, I didn't know what to expect. I saw the book cover and I'm like, oh, is this fantasy? I don't know. And then you start reading the book and you don't want to put the book down. It's amazing. And for me, the second book was very similar. I really, really enjoyed it. It was deeper, it had a lot of things, but it was also a very fun read. So definitely I would keep it too. I don't know if I'll go back and reread it, but you never know. I'm very much like you where I'm like, ah, that was a fun book, let me read it again because I've forgotten about the book. Then I might do it.
Is there anything else that you think we should talk about about this book?
Lynne: I don't think so. I think something that I can think about in my family is that I have 4 daughters who have really different interests, really different things that they enjoy doing. They're all readers, but they like different kinds of literature. All 4 of them loved both of these books. And that's something, you know.
Kirti Mutatkar: Is it like a young adult thing, you think?
Lynne: I don't know. They're 33 to 40, so maybe. But I think there's just something about the joy and the love and the positivity—in the most lovely way, not like this toxic positivity nonsense that we hear—but just something that is refreshing for the soul in a rough time where everybody needs a little refreshment.
Kirti Mutatkar: I totally agree with that. There are a lot of books that are written where it's kind of a sad ending, or maybe that's the real life out there and that's how it is. But putting some hope in someone, saying maybe, like you said, there could be a community around you that's supportive.
Lynne: Yeah, so it's the hope that maybe the arc of the moral universe is long, but it does bend toward justice, or love wins, or some of those things that we like to believe are true. It's nice to read a book where that happens.
Kirti Mutatkar: That is really refreshing. And actually when you think about it, even our book club, the way we think, the way we discuss books—there's so much hope in that, right? I mean, we all think the way we need to think and not think the way somebody, the society expects us to think. That's the cool part.
Lynne: For sure.
Kirti Mutatkar: So thank you so much for doing this, Lynn. Maybe we'll do it 1 more next book club.
Lynne: It was my pleasure. I enjoyed it. Thank you.